A brain atlas is composed of serial sections along different

anatomical plane An anatomical plane is a hypothetical plane used to transect the body, in order to describe the location of structures or the direction of movements. In human and animal anatomy, three principal planes are used: * The sagittal plane or lateral ...

s of the healthy or diseased developing or adult animal or

human brain The human brain is the central organ of the human nervous system, and with the spinal cord makes up the central nervous system. The brain consists of the cerebrum, the brainstem and the cerebellum. It controls most of the activities of the ...

where each relevant brain structure is assigned a number of coordinates to define its outline or volume. Brain atlases are contiguous, comprehensive results of visual

brain mapping Brain mapping is a set of neuroscience techniques predicated on the mapping of (biological) quantities or properties onto spatial representations of the (human or non-human) brain resulting in maps. According to the definition established in ...

and may include anatomical, genetic or functional features. A functional brain atlas is made up of

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regions of interest, where these regions are typically defined as spatially contiguous and functionally coherent patches of gray matter. In most atlases, the three dimensions are: latero-lateral (x), dorso-ventral (y) and rostro- caudal (z). The possible sections are * coronal *

sagittal The sagittal plane (; also known as the longitudinal plane) is an anatomical plane that divides the body into right and left sections. It is perpendicular to the transverse and coronal planes. The plane may be in the center of the body and divi ...

transverse Transverse may refer to: *Transverse engine, an engine in which the crankshaft is oriented side-to-side relative to the wheels of the vehicle *Transverse flute, a flute that is held horizontally * Transverse force (or ''Euler force''), the tangen ...

Surface maps are sometimes used in addition to the 3D serial section maps Besides the human brain, brain atlases exist for the brains of the mouse,

rhesus macaque The rhesus macaque (''Macaca mulatta''), colloquially rhesus monkey, is a species of Old World monkey. There are between six and nine recognised subspecies that are split between two groups, the Chinese-derived and the Indian-derived. Generally b ...

s, ''

Drosophila ''Drosophila'' () is a genus of flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or (less frequently) pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many species ...

'',

pig The pig (''Sus domesticus''), often called swine, hog, or domestic pig when distinguishing from other members of the genus '' Sus'', is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is variously considered a subspecies of ''Sus ...

and others. Notable examples include the

Allen Brain Atlas The Allen Mouse and Human Brain Atlases are projects within the Allen Institute for Brain Science which seek to combine genomics with neuroanatomy by creating gene expression maps for the mouse and human brain. They were initiated in September 2 ...

BrainMaps BrainMaps is an NIH-funded interactive zoomable high-resolution digital brain atlas and virtual microscope that is based on more than 140 million megapixels (140 terabytes) of scanned images of serial sections of both primate and non-primate br ...

BigBrain BigBrain is a freely accessible high-resolution 3D digital atlas of the human brain, released in June 2013 by a team of researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute and the German Forschungszentrum Jülich and is part of the European Human Bra ...

, and the work of the International Consortium for Brain Mapping (ICBM).

References

{{reflist Neuroanatomy Biological databases

See also

References